


All Hail the New Kids

by silversky



Series: SPN Song Challenge [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Season/Series 10, Wayward Daughters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4844414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversky/pseuds/silversky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the time she was 17, Claire had become her own home. Unless you were real unlucky, you couldn’t run away from yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Hail the New Kids

**Author's Note:**

> First in a series of fics I'm hoping to write for [this challenge](http://spnsongchallenge.tumblr.com/%22). This week's prompt was the song Renegades by X Ambassadors.

Claire had never run away from home when she lived in Pontiac, never even thought about it. For the first 11 years of her life home had meant family dinners and evening prayer, warmth and smiles and safety. There’d been no voice in the back of her head whispering that she’d be happy or free if she just walked out the door. She was content. Instead, that voice came for her father, and Claire’s home ran away from her as easily as what was suddenly _not_ her father walked through their gate. Then a year later, when Claire was finally used to a home of two instead of three, it ran away again, lost in that brief yet infinite moment when she was light and song and beautiful terrible power.

By the time she was 17, Claire had become her own home. Unless you were real unlucky, you couldn’t run away from yourself. Although sometimes she wondered, locked up in another all but prison for kids, if she might not prefer if you could. Either way, it didn’t matter. Wasn’t like she’d ever have another chance to find something better.

* * *

Claire didn’t know what to think of Jody. From the way she’d acted when the taxi dropped her off with not much more than an angel sword and a stuffed cat, the sheriff seemed alright, for the given amount of alright any law enforcement could be. But what kind of person agreed to take in a random kid two wackos insisted needed to stay with you? Especially when, as Jody’d made sure to explain, you already had one teenage orphan of the supernatural emptying out your fridge. Claire eventually figured that enough exposure to the Winchesters would cause anyone to give up on normal in favor of embracing the crazy. She wondered what that meant for her.

Still, that kind of thinking wouldn’t help anything or anyone, so Claire went to find her new roommate. Might as well see if this Alex chick knew any good music before she hoofed it. Living on the road was better than getting tied down by people who’d end up leaving anyway, but it didn’t make it easy to keep up with the times. Claire’d stick around long enough to download some albums, catch up on sleep, and scarf a few homecooked meals. Then she was gone.

* * *

Claire had been planning to leave tomorrow, for sure this time, almost a month when Krissy and Kate showed up. The former was the kind of person Claire understood: all prickle and sneer to keep well-meaning strangers from interfering. She could relate.

Kate was different. Older than the other girls, her wide eyes and quiet manner made her seem soft, a definite outlier from the set of ‘girls fucked up enough to end up crashing with Jody Mills’. Didn’t take long to find out her claws were as sharp as the rest of theirs though, just a bit less metaphoric. Claire almost expected Krissy to say she was a reformed zombie, the way everyone here seemed to be a current or former _something_.

That night, stretched out on the pale blue Ikea bed she and Donna had spent an afternoon putting together last week, Claire thought about what had led them all here. It wasn’t all that surprising that the Winchesters were a common element. ‘We can do better,’ ran through her mind as she edged on sleep. ‘It’s all we have left.’

* * *

Claire was the last of the girls to hear about the ghost in Chamberlain. Donna’d called it in while the teen was at the town’s library, studying for her GED. By the time she’d locked her bike to the rack by the driveway, Alex and Kate were already loading the van. Claire grinned when she realized what that meant, even without details. After a morning of trying to relearn the intricacies of syntax and when to use FOIL, a hunt was just the distraction she needed.

The job, Claire heard in a rush from Krissy as they waved goodbye to Jody, was a simple one. Quick salt and burn of an aggressive but non-deadly apparition, sightings not even 3 hours away. With a bit of luck they’d be back in time for a late dinner. Any one of them could have handled it on their own by now, but that wasn’t how they did things, not if they didn’t have to. ‘We can do better,’ she’d promised herself in the dark all those months back, though she hadn’t realized it was a promise at the time. And doing better meant sticking together, knowing where to draw the line between life and the job. Their history meant the supernatural wasn’t something any of them could ignore, but neither were they going to let it consume their futures. They knew what that lead to.

About an hour out on the drive from Sioux Falls, a song on the radio broke through Claire’s backseat doze, and the girl felt something stir inside that she’d thought had died with her childhood. ‘I’m home,’ she realized, slumped against a lightly snoring ex-vampire, headed towards a ghost hunt in a van driven by a werewolf who obsessed over turn signals. ‘We all are.’

So Claire sang.

 _Our time to make a move._ For Alex, finally able to choose where her life went, lead by hope instead of hate.

 _Our time to make amends._ For Kate, slowly learning that she didn’t have to fear her past.

 _Our time to break the rules._ For Krissy, free from the cycle of death and revenge that had brought her here in the first place.

_Let’s begin._

 

**Author's Note:**

> My first non-fluff piece, and my first time not writing about Dean and Cas! Considering this was written in the wee hours of the morning over two nights, I'm rather impressed. I'd love to hear what you have to think, either in the comments or on [my tumblr](http://theoncomingcroat.tumblr.com/).


End file.
